Motorola Licenses SuperFlash

Electronic News, May 17, 1999

Sunnyvale, Calif.-Motorola Inc.'s Semiconductor Products Sector said it has licensed flash technology from Silicon Storage Technology Inc. (SST), based here, for a wide range of embedded memory applications.

Motorola said it will use 0.50-micron and 0.25-micron generations of SST's SuperFlash technology to produce products for the networking, computing, consumer, transportation and wireless markets. The company's Austin-based semiconductor group said that it intends to use the SuperFlash technology in 8- , 16- and 32-bit microcontrollers, as well as in other integrated circuit designs across a wide spectrum of chip divisions.

"Our research finds that the use of flash memory technology within embedded or semiconductor applications is growing dramatically," said Scott Anderson, corporate vice president and general manager of Motorola's Semiconductor Products Sector. "SST's SuperFlash technology complements our own embedded flash and process technologies allowing us to more quickly bring to market next-generation DigitalDNA solutions."

SST's flash memory is a NOR type, split-gate cell technology which uses a reliable thick-oxide process with fewer manufacturing steps, according to the company. Those reduced steps result in lower cost devices with a high level of data retention and reliability, SST said.

"Our ongoing goal has been to establish SuperFlash as the technology of choice for embedded applications," said Bing Yeh, president and chief executive officer of SST. "We are very pleased that Motorola has embraced the technology, and agreed to promote it internally, which will greatly enhance our position. Motorola may only benefit from our low-density products, but a few years down the road, people will realize that we're as good at high-density as we are at low-density."